In 2014, when Mick Gordon took over the soundtrack for the rebooted Doom, he received three instructions: The soundtrack he created should be fresh enough to fit the game perfectly, and it needed to be able to be enjoyed by millions of players as soon as they listened.
When Mick heard these three instructions, his first reaction was to quickly find a toilet to hide and shrink into a mess and cry for a while. Music creation is both an artistic and a technical work. To make the soundtrack fresh enough, a new timbre and musical structure was needed. If you want music to fit well with the game, you need to find a way to make the music representing different atmospheres and moods seamlessly transform as the game progresses. As for whether the final work can be liked by millions of players as soon as they hear it, it can only be blessed by God.
Although the requirements given to Mick by the Doom development team seem to be a bit super-outlined, for the AAA game masterpieces standing at the top of the entertainment industry pyramid, music and sound effects are a difficult problem that must be overcome to improve the performance of the game. The length of the shots and the editing rhythm of the film and television works can be adjusted according to the creator's intentions, and the picture is used to render the atmosphere with the music when necessary. But the game is different from the movie, in the process of playing, as long as it is not a cutscene, the player usually has an absolute leading role in the occurrence of in-game events, and can only use the soundtrack to match the picture.
In early years games like Need for Speed, this twist was generally very blunt. When the player crashes the car, he will temporarily switch the music after the crash, and then play a relatively quiet BGM, reflecting the process of the game gradually heating up again.
Making the music fresh enough is also an extremely difficult thing to say and easy to do. The freshness of music generally comes from two aspects: on the one hand, the changes in the rhythm and melody of the arrangement, and on the other hand, the innovation in timbre. The average player's feeling of melody and rhythm may be more intuitive, but in fact, the timbre of the instrument is also crucial for musical expression, and some iconic timbres can even directly change the impression of the entire piece of music.
"As soon as the beep sounded, I knew it was not good"
To give a simple example: When many people talk about the 80s song and dance, they will think of a word "move and play". The "hit" here is actually a very representative sound effect achieved through technical means. At that time, the well-known musician Phil Collins received the wrong effect in a recording, resulting in the recorded drum sound waveform being reversed. Normal drumming, the drum will be the strongest at the knock, and then gradually weakened and dissipated, but the reverse waveform, the knock down of the weaker, and then will gradually become stronger, and finally abruptly stopped, appearing particularly crisp and clean.
The loudness curve of a normal drum with reverb (top) and the converse drum sound (bottom) is exactly the opposite
This reverse drum sound was later widely used as the defining sound of the 80s, after which, as long as music (such as Taylor Swift's 1989) used such drum sounds, it naturally had a sense of age and a disco flavor of "moving times".
Returning to the doom score, Mick's initial creation was actually not very successful. He made some innovative attempts, but none of them were recognized by the development team. After several rounds of ordeal, Mick realized that the traditional method of music composition could not adapt to the fast-paced, crisp and explosive Doom. To achieve the desired effect, a new set of creative methods and processes is needed.
Players of Roguelike games know that the levels of this type of game are very random, and developers usually create good art materials, then design some basic level units, and then the algorithm randomly combines these level units, adjusts the proportion of monsters and treasure chests, and finally forms an endless number of random levels.
Mick's final approach to creation is very similar to making a Roguelike game. He first designed several sets of effects like a game level unit, and then wrote a small melody, so that the melody passed through each set of effects like a level, generating several final sounds that sounded very different, and finally combined these sounds to form a complete piece of music.
Because these sound effects are all produced by the distortion and transformation of the same sound source, the combination, although it sounds very wild and violent, the various sound effects are very harmonious, which can make people faintly feel their inner connection.
If Mick needs to fine-tune the resulting sound, such as making a certain sound warmer and purer, by adjusting various parameters in the Effects Level. If he wants to have some more avant-garde, more alternative sounds, he can also let go of himself and play around and make some bold attempts.
Mick explains his "Doom Instrument" on GDC, which has many similarities in the form of generative timbres to the Roguelike game's spawn levels
This workflow is also particularly convenient for development teams to integrate music into the game. By adding or subtracting elements from the soundtrack through real-time mixing, Doom doesn't need to change tracks to achieve the effect of changing the musical atmosphere at any time following the game's battle situation. As soon as the battle situation tightens, the explosive music will sound, and when the player performs the execution stunt, the soundtrack will naturally make more irritable feedback, making the player feel as if he is stepping on a battle MV.
Judging from the final result, Mick exceeded this difficult task. The rebooted Doom soundtrack, which was released in 2016, brought players an unprecedented experience, not only got the best soundtrack of the year, but also became a hot meme on the Internet. No matter what kind of plot, with the BGM of "Doom", it becomes hot and exciting. Some players even joked that the rebooted version of Doom was actually "buying music and sending games".
Mick's creation didn't happen overnight. The development team for Doom, id Software, invited Trent Rezno, then an avant-garde industrial metal rock star and later two-time Oscar winner for Best Score, to participate in the creation of the soundtrack for the original Quake. And teams like id are not alone. Many of the top game development teams are aware that the design of music and sound effects is critical to the design of games as a special interactive experience, and these developers are always committed to introducing advanced musical aesthetics and creative concepts into the game.
Another of the better examples of this is The Sims. Although not as radical and novel as Doom, the soundtrack of the Sims series has always been unique in its integration with the gameplay experience. Players will feel that the music is changing very naturally when entering and exiting building mode, opening the create villain interface, or manipulating the villain to perform various activities. And although the soundtrack of the game sounds simple and repetitive at first, it is constantly changing, and it will not feel boring and monotonous to play for a long time.
This effect can be achieved by the understanding and exploration of "Minimalist Music" by the "Sims" series of arrangers. Minimalist music does not mean that the arrangement is simple, but that when the music itself is created, the most basic, only a few notes in length or one or two bars of motivation (motif) is directly combined and repeated as the basic unit of the whole piece, rather than combining the motivation into a sentence and then combining it into a movement like traditional music.
The most intuitive feeling of this difference in creative thinking is that the main body of minimalist music repeatedly jumps in one or two bars, while there are constantly new instruments and changes in the background. Electronic dance music, Hyperpop-style pop music, and some of the soundtracks hans Zimmer composed for Nolan's films are all classic examples of minimalist music. People who are not accustomed to this form of music, because they can't find familiar phrases, will feel that minimalist music is "out of tune", which is also a major reason why the older generation has this criticism of current popular music.
Although the soundtrack of "The Sims" is itself minimalist music, the design of the motivation is more ingenious, more like a shortened "mini phrase". Although it is only a very simple combination of scales, it gives the game's soundtrack the illusion of "as if there is a key". On this basis, various changes are added to make the soundtrack of the game repeat, but it will continue to maintain a sense of freshness.
The rhythm of the game itself is relaxed and slow, such a soundtrack design makes it easy for casual players to accept, plus the basic unit of music is very short, so after the player makes the operation, the last bar is played, and the next bar immediately makes some musical changes for the player's operation, which is also very smooth and natural. The soundtrack of The Sims also broadens the creators' understanding of minimalist music, and in addition to the more avant-garde experimental themes, this musical form can also be used to create relaxed and casual music genres.
Of course, this kind of exploration and exploration of music by game manufacturers, in addition to improving the player's experience within the game, it is also easy to "break the circle" outside the game, leading the trend in the field of mass music appreciation. For example, the game soundtrack on the red and white machine in the early years, although subject to technical limitations is very simple, but with a high degree of recognition of the timbre and brainwashing arrangement, influenced many new generations of musicians, and even later formed a musical genre characterized by 8-bit timbre.
And the soundtrack created by Mick Gordon for "Doom" not only makes players feel energetic and addictive, but even the old metal fans who do not play games are very excited, saying that "I can't sleep at the thought of a new generation recognizing metal music in this way." Players like League of Legends sometimes pay more attention to music than the game's updates.
In the field of music, the exploration of domestic game manufacturers is relatively small, but in recent years, there has been a trend of gradually paying attention to this aspect. A more interesting example is the recent Cubes Collective project launched by Eagle Point's Ucta Boundary Music Co., Ltd.
The project itself has a very Web 2.0 flavor, inviting well-known and excellent musicians, and then having them create anonymously as a block to rediscover themselves. Every musician has the same opportunity to express and present, and after erasing the aura of identity, every participant and bystander can also see the real energy contained in the music of these creators. Each musician is doing both individual work and part of the creation of the whole group.
Eagle Point is no stranger to music planning. For example, before the establishment of the virtual music project Siren, there are virtual film ceremonies, production of related MVs, and even planning offline performances, Eagle Horn is not less involved. In the middle of this year, the offline concert held by Eagle Point is hard to find, and we have also reported in detail.
Of course, the establishment of an independent subsidiary to operate exclusively in music is a different level of vision and determination. According to Eagle Horn, the boundaries of Ucota will continue to expand, holding offline events, and even cultivating creators who may explore more commercially to provide music creation and solutions for other games, animations or entertainment forms.
Cubes Collective has released a number of musical compositions so far, and the first work for the first time, Waves, expounds the cube collective's philosophy and adopts some very bold visual representations, simply using the combination of cubes to narrate, the whole process is very wonderful.
In the follow-up "KUBOS Coopers", a piano player appeared in the MV, wrapped in black clothes and wearing a mask like VR glasses, which gave a very specific explanation for the "anonymity" in this project. Recurring block elements and unambiguous live-action effects may suggest that the project aims more ambitiously than it seems.
From this point of view, this time the Cube Collective and Eagle Horn's previous planning have some differences in nature. Rather than a propositional essay for some specific audience groups, it is more like a large-scale music social experiment, and the point that needs to be sought is not only the degree of mass dissemination, but also the music itself. When a group of talented people go together to break through themselves and find new voices, there will always be some wonderful chemical reactions. Eagle Point's goal, perhaps like other top game development teams, is to leave its mark on the history of music development. And the participation of domestic game companies in this level of exploration and competition is something I have always expected to see.